Stefan Mileschin

Thank goodness for crystal balls

Hyundai has so far avoided a chip shortage that has plagued global automakers, largely maintaining its stockpile of chips last year and even accelerating purchases towards the end, while their rivals did not.

Other than Japan’s Toyota, which said this month it had enough chip inventory to last it about four months, Hyundai and its sister firm Kia Corp are the only global automakers to have maintained a stockpile of low-tech chips that helped them keep up production.

The South Korean automaker kept buying chips even as rivals cut orders to reflect diminished demand because of the pandemic.

“But procurement read the trend of the semiconductor industry cutting auto chips production and said, ‘if we don’t buy them as well, we’ll be in trouble later on,’” said a deep throat told Reuters.

https://fudzilla.com/news/automotive...others-did-not